Crime Agency worker ‘scarred’ by Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) sues for £100k

The National Crime Agency is being sued for more than £100,000 by a former worker who claims he was mentally scarred by months of work sifting through evidence of child sexual abuse.  

Christopher Fernandes, 31, says he spent eight hours a day processing the contents of crates of evidence from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) at the crime-fighting agency’s Vauxhall headquarters.  

He claims he was isolated from colleagues while cataloguing the “highly explicit and extreme” documents, images, and recordings, saying the work left him depressed and even contemplating suicide.  

In a High Court claim for damages, Mr Fernandes said the work went beyond his role as an administrative business support officer, and he alleges it continued even after the NCA was warned he needed “psychological support”. Setting out his case in writing, his lawyer Edwin Buckett said Mr Fernandes was instructed to sort “urgent confidential material” from the IICSA shortly after starting work at the NCA in May 2017.  

The wide-ranging inquiry, led by Professor Alexis Jay, has spent years investigating historic abuse in care homes, schools and churches, as well as allegations of child sex rings in Westminster. “(He) was required to work largely on his own on this material… to process the contents of blue storage crates”, said Mr Buckett. “This involved documenting the exact contents of each crate, considering and noting the names of victims, perpetrators, convictions, types of documents, imaging and audio material.  

“The contents of each crate involve highly-explicit and extreme child abuse material (sexual abuse, torture and murder) of the utmost severity which (he) was required to view.”

Mr Fernandes claims he was “not adequately warned about the type and extent of material he was due to encounter”, and worked on the crates for nine months until February 2018.  

He says in late December 2017 he told a consultant psychologist provided by the NCA that viewing the abuse material was “causing him serious problems”, but was not removed from the project until February 8, 2018, it is said.  

The NCA is accused of failing to properly support Mr Fernandes, assess his suitability for the role, and monitor his mental health, and it is said he was not given a choice about taking on the work.  

Mr Buckett said Mr Fernandes developed severe post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, taking time off before transferring from the NCA in August 2019. “When seen for the purposes of a medical report in March 2020, the claimant was noted to be depressed and anxious most of the time”, he wrote.  A claim for over £100,000 has been filed at the High Court and sent to the NCA.

An NCA spokesperson said: “We treat the health and safety of our staff as one of our highest priorities. However, we can’t comment on ongoing legal proceedings.”